Background

 and inhuman actions​                                                      My  Background
 
Born by the Solway, Whitehaven December 1944. My childhood, the first 12 years, was in a unique community recovering from the second world war. That community had a continued spirit from VE day, a strong sense of community and social harmony, and despite the hardships of scarcity and the food rationing people got ‘stuck in’ and made things work, not only that but they celebrated with community parades, sports events and community competitions.

It was also a place to which Jewish children, survivors from the concentration camps (‘The Windermere Children’), were brought by the British government. The place was called Calgarth, a collection of about 140 brick bungalows well away from other towns or villages in the countryside close to the shores of Lake Windermere across from the mountains in the English Lakedistrict. Presumably taken by compulsory purchase during the war to house aircraft factory workers for a new factory to be built up north in the Lakedistrict, well away from German bombers, and now there is nothing of that Calgarth community, it has been cleared and returned to the landowner completely cleared of all habitation and reverted to farm land.

It is impossible to measure or quantify the influence of culture, and millions of experiences of people and places, on who we are, but undoubtedly a childhood, immersed in nature, close to the lakeshore across from the mountains in the English Lakedistrict , in that Calgarth community, and with very loving, giving parents has had a great deal to do with my passions.

It would be too strong to say that there was a sense of purpose in that Calgarth community but there was a subtle thread of unity recovering from the war effort, and it is that sense of unity that I find lacking in today’s society.

From that positive sense of unity following the war effort, the fifties and early sixties saw Britain embroiled in a major adversarial scenario between Government and the Trade Union movement. Not getting into the negatives in British history but possibly class structure, the feudal system and exploitation contributed to subsequent emergence of Trade Unionism. I had difficulty reconciling the strong thread of unity and community and co-operation from childhood with this national adversarial confrontation of government and trade unions.

I travelled to New Zealand by ship in ’67 and in various occupations around the South Island I experienced being part of highly productive work teams. Highly productive work teams but also surprisingly some of the happiest work experiences in my life. This again added to my difficulty of reconciling these positive experiences with the strong ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ attitudes prevailing in many UK workplaces. I reflected on ‘how would it be possible to create a co-operative teamwork productive culture in workplaces whilst still retaining capitalist free enterprise? It is from that reflection, meandering home, no doubt a touch inebriated, from Eichardts Queenstown waterfront public bar in 1967, that the concept of a ‘common bond’ that all employees qualified for equally emerged.
 
The ’common Bond’ which I am now calling ‘Timacapitalism’ which all employees qualify for equally and transparently does not contribute a major part of remuneration but it does create the cement that binds the corporate team together. A surprisingly simple concept that sees employees as partners in success not as assets brought together to earn a dividend on other people’s capital.

In our evolution there has always been an element of collaboration and co-operation for our survival and growth, which will have given a sense of purpose. An interesting observation by Yuval Harari from the book 'Sapiens' p 403 (published by Penguin 2011) 'Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and think as community members. Within a mere two centuries we have become alienated individuals’, … and that, I believe, has contributed to the high levels of antidepressant medication and suicide statistics prevalent today.


I have been a resident of this magic town of Nelson for over 30 years and I ran a small backpacker hostel ‘Trampers Rest’ for 22 years. I have had over 30 employments and there have been too many meanderings in my life to continue this background, and of course, my story, as others, is far more complex than this. These are just the circumstances that have led me to think of capitalism in such a circumspect way, and so, to the point of writing. I think we can acknowledge how damaging neoliberalism has been for the economy and society and the time is right in our evolution for a refinement to capitalism.
 
 
The slave trade could have been the kick start for neoliberalist thinking and nowadays neo-liberalist capitalism has given us extreme inequality, vast accumulations of wealth in minority groups, corporates that are larger than national economies, brutal company closures imposed by offshore investors and, in addition, there are immensely wealthy corporates and investors who can exert political influence in countries where political parties rely heavily on corporate funding, and subsequently, expansive foreign policy influences have lead to geopolitical destabilising and inhuman actions.  We are also seeing high levels of employee disengagement, more widespread use of stress and depression medication and high levels of social alienation (the sense of not feeling a part of a collective goal or hopeful social vision). 
 
Socially healthy communities or individual life fulfilment are of minimal interest in neoliberalist capitalism. 
 
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